Technology and design in plain language.

Since it’s launch yesterday, there has been a lot of good will and a little bit of confusion about what Melody is. Some people think it’s a community coup d’état with us as the pitchfork wielding mob storming the Six Apart offices. On the flipside, some people think Melody is just a PR move by Six Apart to give Movable Type a makeover. I can assure you, it’s neither of those things.

Actually, instead of telling you what Melody is not, let me tell you what Melody is:

As it stands today, Melody is primarily a movement started by a group of Movable Type community members. Of course, movements mean nothing unless you know where they’re headed. So what’s our roadmap? The goal for Melody is to be an open-source application for site publishing and community building that’s easy to use and really powerful. And just as importantly, we want the creation process for Melody to be collective, transparent and open to anyone willing to jump in and help.

If you were to download Melody today, you’d notice it looks a lot like Movable Type with some community fixes on top—that’s because we’re using Movable Type Open Source as the starting platform. All of the power, stability and flexibility that Movable Type is known for is the foundation we’re building Melody on.

While I can’t speak for anyone else, let me say as plainly as I can why I got involved with Melody:

I wanted to help create a software platform that is governed by the community. I love the fact that both independant contractors as well as an official Six Apart employee are on the board of the Open Melody Software Group. Bringing in many diverse perspectives of the web publishing industry is healthy for the project and ultimately for the application itself.

I wanted to help create a software platform that can take risks. Movable Type is enterprise grade software with a commercial company standing behind it. In many contexts, that’s a good thing—in fact, I’ll still be using Movable Type for many of my clients. But this reputation means things often move slowy and have to go through rigorous corporate QA before release. Melody is about being nimble and incorporating a much wider range of contributions across the spectrum.

I wanted to help create open source software. While there’s nothing wrong with creating software and charging people for it, I find a personal sense of satisfaction and joy in creating software that others can freely benefit from.

I trust the people involved with Melody. This is probably the most personal reason for using Melody and one that will mean the least to others, but it certainly bears stating. Having spent years working with these core members of the Melody project, I trust the common vision that these folks have for Melody and I’m excited about what the future hold for the project, challenges and all.

Stop by OpenMelody.org and see what all the fuss is about.

And for those of you that skipped down to the bottom because you like pretty pictures, here are some toys for your enjoyment.

Related Links

Melody In The Press:

• CNET: Meet Melody: Movable Type’s Open-source Sibling
• ZDNet: How Friendly Is the Movable Type Fork?
• InformationWeek: Melody: Movable Type, Reloaded
• CMSWire: Movable Type Forks, Hello Open Melody

Melody In The Community:

• Ben Trott, Founder of Movable Type: Meet Melody
• Byrne Reese: The People Behind Melody
• Dan Wolfgang: Introducing Melody!
• Mark Carey: Open Melody: Movable Type Forked
• Lloyd Budd: New Project to Find Movable Type Community’s Melody

Melody Elsewhere:

• Delicious
• Twitter
• Digg